


Three Fires in the Room

by myadamantiumheart



Series: Three Fires Burning [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 10:53:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11553693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: Clint Barton does a lot of things accidentally: chief among them, end up in a relationship with the former Winter Soldier.It ends up being the best accident of his life.





	Three Fires in the Room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chyeloh (plerpson)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plerpson/gifts).



> So I was texting my significant other and we ended up getting way deep into this AU and now it turns out I'm in love with it and I've got a million oneshot ideas, so we'll see where this goes.

It begins, like everything in his life does, completely accidentally. Accidentally, like that time he woke up in a dumpster in Queens. Accidentally, like how for a brief period of time he taught second grade as a substitute. Accidentally, like how he’s wearing Bucky’s old boxers and he’s drinking coffee on the couch with him and they’re roommates now and he thinks, maybe, he’s in love. 

Their building (his building) isn’t in the best part of town- his loft just echoed, before, and there were a lot of comfortable old furniture pieces that weren’t getting used to their full potential. Kate doesn’t come around much, since she’s based on the west coast now. And he doesn’t like to say that he was lonely, per se, but. Things were a lot less fun before Bucky muscled his way into Clint’s apartment. It started out with Bucky trying to escape Natasha and Steve in the tower (Clint wonders whether Natasha planned it this way from the beginning.) He showed up on Clint’s doorstep carrying a pizza and a stack of Dog Cop dvds, and didn’t bother knocking. Just picked the lock and walked right in, past Clint who was making coffee, and sat on the couch. 

“Hello?” Clint half said, half asked. Bucky rifled through the dvds to find the first season, turned around on the couch to look at Clint, and waved the case at him. 

“Natasha is trying to get me to join her zumba class,” Bucky said, like that was any explanation. “Help me catch up on Dog Cop, I’m behind.” As with many things, it’s easier to shrug and go along with it. That’s how it started. Clint going along with it, Bucky’s flagrant incursion on his personal space. Soon, he was expecting Bucky to be on the couch when he came home, sometimes trailing Sam or Steve behind him. It was comfortable in a way that Clint hadn’t expected. The fact that Bucky knew several types of sign language made it even easier, because three times in the first two months of their (what Clint realizes now was an) awkward courtship, he lost his hearing aids in piles of dirty laundry. Soon, the dirty laundry was mysteriously disappearing, and Clint knew he never folded his shirts into the drawers that way but he wasn’t going to question it because it was one less thing to do. 

Bucky got along with Clint’s dog, too. Not that he was in any way emotionally swayed by that, or anything. 

And then, sixth months into whatever the hell this was, Clint did what he always did. He fucked up. Miscalculated how many people were in the alleyway. Miscalculated how many arrows he had left. Miscalculated how many tire irons the motley crew of gang members had access too. Limped home like the victim of a train wreck, dragged himself up the stairs, and collapsed through his apartment door. 

“Jesus christ,” Bucky said, through a mouthful of Clint’s leftover tater tots, which he had totally been saving for a good old fashioned hotdish later this week. “What kind of semi-truck hit you?” 

“The Russian kind,” Clint groaned, leaning up against the apartment door that he had finally managed to close, no thanks to the grinning asshole in his kitchen. Bucky swallowed, opening up the freezer next to him with a kind of gleeful determination, and grabbed the cold bottle of vodka lying on the top shelf. 

“To the bathroom, then,” he said, vaulting over the island counter like some thrice-damned hot-ass acrobatic son of a bitch oh my god Clint was losing a lot of blood because he probably said that out loud, and- oh. With a roll of his eyes (they were really pretty, actually, up close and blue and long-lashed), Bucky yanked Clint up until he was resting against his metal arm, and fairly dragged his ass through the loft. 

“I already have rubbing alcohol, what’s the vodka for?” Clint asked muzzily, slumped on the toilet seat. He didn’t protest as Bucky just went ahead and ripped his shirt off. To be fair, it was mostly holes already, in a very Captain Kirk way. Clint likes to call it “dashingly ragged”. It’s a style, Natasha, okay? A stylistic choice, if you will. Anyway, there was no need for Bucky to disinfect his wounds Budapest-style, because-

“It’s for you to drink, you dumb fuck,” Bucky said, handing Clint the bottle as he rustled around in the first aid kit under Clint’s perpetually leaky sink. “Because you’ve got a bullet wound with no exit hole on your leg and I get the feeling I’m about to perform amateur surgery.” 

Huh. Clint didn’t notice any bullet wounds when he was in the alley. 

But when Bucky touches it, uncharacteristically gentle, Clint definitely fucking notices it. He takes a long swig of the bottle, choking it down gracelessly, because the faster he can numb himself the less he’s going to have to feel like his leg is literally on fire. Time seems liquid for a little while, in and out of consciousness with Bucky working his way up his leg to the scrapes on his chest, the deep rib bruising that’s already blooming purple, the gash on his collarbone and his bicep. By the time Clint zones back in, a good third of the bottle later, Bucky is carefully pressing his split lip closed and smoothing vaseline over the crack. Clint’s cheek is throbbing numbly, his head is spinning, and he’s pretty sure he’s got a concussion. 

“Do you mind if I take your hearing aids out?” Bucky asks, low and gravelly and serious. “I have to wash this cut on your head but I’m afraid I’ll short them.” 

“As long as you promise not to hide them from me,” Clint slurs, letting his head fall forward a little to rest on Bucky’s flesh and blood hand. Bucky snorts once, mirthless, and then his fingers are gently slipping the devices from Clint’s ears, flicking them off and setting them on the shelf far out of the way. His head fills with cotton, the empty space in his ears, and everything is peacefully muffled. Alone in his world with just the echoes of Bucky moving around and finding butterfly bandages making their way through. Bucky leans down, signs briefly to him- I’m going to clean it out now. The water is cold, clear, stinging the gash, but it’s over before Clint knows it- or perhaps it wasn’t, but he can’t really tell right now. His ratty old washcloth wipes off the residue, and then Bucky slowly patches the edges together. By the time he’s done, Clint could fall asleep on Bucky’s warm chest, soft sweatshirt, comfort dragging him in like the gravity of a moon pulls on an ocean’s tides. 

“Let’s get you to bed,” Bucky says, loud enough and close enough to Clint’s better ear that he can mostly hear it. And then Clint doesn’t really remember anything after that. 

In the morning, Bucky makes coffee, and Clint heaves himself down to the couch to sprawl sorely on the ragged, pockmarked cushions. He’s wearing those old boxers when Bucky hands him that cup of coffee, and even through the haze of his body hating him for whatever those guys had done to him last night, he’s overcome with a blinding desire to kiss James Buchanan Barnes. 

“Come here,” Clint says, setting the coffee down on the side table and forcing himself to sit up straighter. For once in his life, Bucky actually does what Clint asks, and comes to stand between his battered legs. His eyes are soft, the warmth that Clint is used to coming home to, now, and he reaches out a hand to press his thumb against the dip in Clint’s chin. 

“Good morning, you absolute disaster,” Bucky says, leaning down a little towards Clint. After that it’s not hard to reach his aching arm up and hook the back of Bucky’s neck, dragging him down. His mouth feels like fire against Clint’s split lip but he’s warm and he’s safe and he’s pressing his other hand into the couch behind Clint’s shoulder and wrapping him up whole. 

“So I wasn’t imagining it,” Clint murmurs against Bucky’s stubbled jaw, and Bucky laughs as Lucky snorts and snuffles, getting up from his spot on the other end of the couch and deciding he’s done with their bullshit. 

“You weren’t imagining it, baby,” Bucky says, his lips brushing against Clint’s neck and his shoulders becoming the whole horizon of Clint’s view. “I wasn’t just hanging out in your apartment because you’re the least annoying Avenger.” 

“Yeah, well, my first clue to that is that I’m definitely not the least annoying Avenger,” Clint says dryly, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead into Bucky’s sleep-warm shirt. “That’s probably Wanda.” 

“It’s definitely Wanda,” Bucky slides himself sideways and somehow manages to bundle Clint up against him so they’re both lying on the couch, coffee forgotten. And everything about this was an accident, but everything about it also feels right. 

They don’t really talk about it, though. Bucky never asks what the status of their relationship is- one day, at the Bodega down the block, Mrs. Ramirez just tells Clint that his boyfriend is very sweet and he should really make sure he hangs on to that one. So Clint assumes that’s what they are. Boyfriends. It’s been awhile since he had a boyfriend. Steve texts Clint things like “please come collect your boyfriend”, and “make sure Bucky’s stupidity isn’t sexually transmitted”. Darcy sends him youtube videos about “things gay couples experience” from buzzfeed along with wildly personal anecdotes about her former girlfriends. Thor claps him on the back and says it’s not that surprising to him that two sharp shooters would get along in bed as well, which is slightly painful considering Clint was in the middle of discussing health benefits with Pepper. 

To be fair, Clint never asks about it either. When he’s grilling for the other tenants on the roof, he lets Bucky place a hand on his hip and talk to Simone about the kids, like they’re some sort of suburban power couple. He steals Bucky’s clothes, and eats his food, and “borrows” his metro card. The only time they ever really acknowledge how serious it is (in the first year, at least) is at eleven months and twenty one days since Bucky showed up. He hands Clint a packet of papers and asks him for his signature so that if Bucky ever actually dies, his benefits and his belongings will go to Clint and Steve. Two days later, Clint hands Bucky the same packet, and Bucky brings the last box of his stuff from the tower, and that’s it. They’re moved in. They’re dating. They’re serious. 

Clint will admit it (maybe, if you manage to catch him in a weak moment, after hours of torture, or if you’re Natasha)- Bucky also happens to be kind of like everything about Clint’s type in men. He’s strong enough to hold Clint down, literally and figuratively. He’s stupidly handsome, and his hair is like. Unfairly good. Probably because Pepper just straight up gives him some sort of Biolage conditioner that smells amazing and makes his hair feel incredible when Clint’s using it as his anchor in the storm of their bed. He can surprise Clint without making it feel exploitative, like he’s using Clint’s comfort with Bucky against him. He can manhandle him around, and, like the little shit he is, fuck with him no matter where they are. He also manages to wear Clint’s clothing and not look homeless, a feat by any measure. 

Bucky will admit, loudly and to anyone who will listen, how attractive he finds Clint. It’s not a secret. Mrs. Ramirez certainly knows. Their tenants know. Some of the people they clash with on a regular basis even know. 

But he’s also comfortable like no one really has been, for Clint. Natasha doesn’t exactly fit into Clint’s life- it’s more like she absorbs him into hers. Seamlessly slipping between missions and his apartment, his bed and his life, her disappearances and her personal projects. Bucky, though, slots right into his days like the missing cog, greasing the wheels and suddenly it doesn’t feel like Clint is constantly ignoring the screeching of rusty gears. He’s good at waking up early, if he has to, and making breakfast, whereas Clint is better at taking care of dinner. Bucky is organized with his laundry, whereas Clint is organized with his weapons. Clint can fix anything about a car, but Bucky can fix any household appliance. Bucky remembers how many servings of fruit and vegetables you’re supposed to eat in a day- Clint is more concerned with the carbohydrates and cheese portions of those terrible MyPlate diagrams Bruce sent the whole team. 

But they both love Dog Cops and they both like their coffee strong and sweet. They both adore a good pizza, a good cuddle with their dog, a good soft sweatshirt. 

And it turns out, they both adore Natasha. 

She appears in their kitchen one morning in early January while Bucky is making breakfast and Clint is dozing in and out to the sounds of the pouring rain on their windows. 

“Make yourself at home,” Bucky says drily, before pulling a third plate out of the cupboard and splitting the eggs up out of the pan before throwing ham into the leftover oil. 

“I already am,” Natasha says, sitting on one of the stools by the island and throwing her black boots up on another. “One of my aliases co-signed the deed.” 

“What?” Clint mumbles, still out of it. “Mission?”

“No mission,” Natasha says, a hint of fondness underneath her calm tone. “Go back to sleep, Clint.” He does, and when he wakes again they’re sitting on either end of him, with Lucky at Natasha’s feet, and the rain is still going. It feels warm, like a fire in his chest. Natasha’s hands thread through his hair absently while she and Bucky discuss something in unintelligibly low Russian over him. He could stay here, theoretically, forever. At least until his bad knee starts to hurt. And his bad hip. Maybe his bad shoulder, too. 

“Are you talking about me?” Clint asks, stretching and turning on his back, catching the edge of a smile on Natasha’s face. 

“Why would we ever talk about a man like you?” Natasha asks him, smoothing the hair off of his forehead. 

“Probably because you're plotting about how to get rid of me so that you two can have some sort of sexy Russian affair in my apartment.” Bucky curls his cold hand around Clint’s foot and strokes his thumb along the curve of his heel. 

“I don't think we’d even need a plan,” Bucky says. “Literally just the offer of pizza would probably do it.” 

“Three pepperoni pizzas and you’d trade the whole building to us for our Russian affair.” 

“Only if I also get to watch it,” Clint says, before he really thinks it through. Because what  _ does _ Clint think through? His arrows. Helping his tenants with their sliding scale rents. Making sure the little library box has books. How many times he’s managed to hit Tony with nerf darts this month. But he doesn't think his words through, so here they are. He stiffens up a little, averting his eyes, as Bucky’s hand squeezes his foot and Natasha’s eyes narrow like a fox in the bushes. 

“That was a joke,” Clint says belatedly, awkwardly, moving to get up. Natasha’s hand yanks a little on his hair, and Bucky’s arm comes down like an iron bar across Clint’s thighs as he leans towards them. 

“It was not,” Bucky says, low and heavy. Natasha yanks on Clint’s hair again, and it makes his muscles weak, makes him roll up a little under Bucky’s grip. 

“Do not lie to me,” Natasha murmurs, leaning over to look him in the eye. “You want to be good for me, don’t you?” Clint chokes a little on his breath, because Jesus fucking Christ Natasha, way to go for the jugular on that one. 

“Yeah he does,” Bucky answers for him, when all he can do is stare up at her with pleading eyes. “He likes to be good for you. You can’t have missed how he is after our missions, Nat.” He reaches a hand up to grope Clint through his sweats, gifting him a predatory smile when Clint arches up into his touch. “It’s more than adrenaline that gets him off, isn’t it, baby?” 

“You’re a dirty traitor, Barnes,” Clint breathes, pressing the back of his head into Natasha’s thigh, letting her pull him slowly back. Bucky grips him hard through the sweats, shifts up onto his knees, shoving Clint’s thighs just far enough apart that he can slot himself in there. 

“Didn’t you hear?” Bucky says, biting Clint’s hip where his shirt has ridden up. “I like working for Russians.” Leave it up to Natasha to turn the tables, though, because she slips her own leg up and around until Clint’s head is cradled in her lap, and she can bend forward to grab a fistful of Bucky’s loose hanging hair. 

“Do you want to work for me, James?” Bucky’s eyes go dark, dark, darker, and he leans into her touch like she’s leading him on a leash. Clint has to bite his lip to keep from whimpering at how easily Bucky softens in Nat’s hands, melting into Clint’s body and looking at her like a devotee waiting for orders from his goddess. Nat presses her fingers into Clint’s forehead, looking back down at him. “And you, pretty boy?” 

“Yeah,” Clint breathes, reaching up to her, out to her, letting her capture his hand and twine her fingers with his, drawing his arm back up to the arm rest until he has no leverage with it any longer. “Yes, please.” 

“Such a polite boy,” Natasha says, that pleased glimmer in her fox-hunt eyes. “But we’re not doing this here- I want the bed, because before I leave you’re both going to make me come.” Bending almost double, she kisses the tip of Clint’s nose, and he can almost physically feel the both of them falling further under her thrall. “And if you’re very nice, perhaps I’ll let you come, too.” He could probably die happy, right now. His legs don’t work the best they’ve ever worked on their way up to the bedroom, but it doesn’t matter much because Bucky practically flings him onto the bed once they’re close enough. Bucky’s practically yanking Clint’s sweatpants off, Natasha unhurriedly slipping out of her clothes, and Clint might be dreaming. He must be. He has to be. 

Natasha climbs onto the bed, gently tracing her nails up his arms as she makes her way up his body, and by the time her thighs bracket his head and her ankles are pinning his shoulders, he knows it isn’t a dream. It’s all too real, with the haze of him slowly slipping down into subspace and the smell of her and how yeah, yes, yep, he’s just as gleeful as ever about the fact that the drapes do in fact match the carpet. Her fingers drag his chin up, thumb parting his lips, and he gives in to the urge to suck on it for a few seconds, looking up at her through glazed eyes. Fuck, they haven’t even gotten to the good part of this, and he’s already gone. Bucky lets out a low, pained sound when Natasha gets a good grip on Clint’s hair and uses her thumb to open his jaw gently. 

“Are you going to make me come with this pretty mouth?” Natasha asks him, like he’s not begging her with his eyes to let him taste her already. Clint can feel the bed dipping beside him where Bucky puts his knee up, makes to crawl on with them, and Nat snaps her head to the side with a wicked grin. “Did I say you could come on the bed, James?” Without a sound, Bucky slips his knee off the bed and drops, kneeling beside it with a shocked look on his face and a blush blooming in his cheeks. “Well?” Natasha prods. “Did I?”

“No,” Bucky says slowly, voice all molasses thick in his throat. Natasha laughs, finally relaxing her thighs and pressing herself against Clint’s mouth. He holds still, pleading with himself not to move, trying to be good for her. 

“You can watch, little soldier,” Natasha murmurs, reaching out a hand to cup Bucky’s jaw, drag him towards her a little. “Good boys go first, and boys like you must learn patience.” Bucky nods, catches her hand with a little kiss as she draws it back, and she allows it like a benevolent ruler might, with an amused tilt of her head. Her other hand tugs on Clint’s hair, her legs flexing and squeezing his jaw for a second. “Go ahead, Clint, I know what you can do.” He wants to cry to whatever god allowed this, because god, oh fuck, she tastes so  _ good _ . It’s so good, with her legs keeping him still but his hips free, like if he squirms enough he might get the pleasure he’s looking for. He could nearly get it just from eating her out, to be honest. She tastes like the ocean and she surrounds him like the waves, keeping him under until he realizes he can breathe water, he can be held like this in the tides. Bucky whines and presses his face into the duvet for a second when Natasha makes her first noise, a stuttering and gentle moan caught on the gasp of a breath. It’s unfairly hot that Clint knows she could kill him just like this, but that he trusts her enough to know that she never would. 

He is drowning, but he is living, in the sunlight of her. 

“You can touch Clint,” she tells Bucky, after a few long syrupy minutes of Clint begging at her altar for more of her, after she’s steadily rolling her hips into his face. “But don’t let him come yet, because I have plans for the both of you.” With a gasp and a sigh, she squeezes her thighs around his jaw, and Clint both cannot breathe in that moment, and desperately gasps, because Bucky is being an Absolute Tease. He drags his finger up the side of Clint’s dick and presses his thumb into the tip, moving with Clint’s shifting hips and never allowing more pressure than he wants to give. Taking Natasha too seriously- Clint will never be able to come like this. Another minute longer, and her gasps get higher in pitch, her fingers squeeze his hair and his hand, and she says,”Come on, pretty boy, make me come so Bucky can have his turn.” 

So he follows her orders without thinking about it and sucks on her clit until she’s shaking around him, the rarest moments which he knows very few get to see- Natasha at her softest, melted like candy in the sun, wet on his face and sweet in its confidence. This thing she is sharing with them. 

“Oh,” she says, she breathes, gentling her grip on him and shifting back so she can see his face fully. “You’re so good for me,” she leans down, bends herself nearly in half to press a soft kiss to his forehead. “Can you wait for me?” Natasha asks, unpinning him and kneeling over his chest, her nails dragging circles along his ribs. “Can you wait a little longer, and I’ll give you something nice for doing as I said?” 

“Yes,” Clint says, licking her off his lips and trying not to beg with his body. He’s mostly unsuccessful, wishing desperately to curl into her and wrap himself around her, pleading with her not to stop touching him. He needs to be anchored, he needs to be held down. 

“Good boy,” Natasha says, and she slides off of him, keeping one hand on his chest and turning to Bucky, who watches them with hungry, desperate eyes. “And are you ready to be good for me too, James? Or do I have to fight you, first.” Bucky laughs, a half kind of humor that comes out more like an involuntary moan. 

“That depends on what you want me to do,” he says, bravado like he hadn’t dropped to his knees the minute she turned her eyes on him. 

“I want you to make me come again,” she smiles, teeth glittering in the half light of their bedroom cathedral, the rain making stained glass patterns on their bare skin. “I want you to fuck me, James, but I don’t want you to touch me, because I want to know how obedient you can be.” Bucky groans, thumbs hooking in his boxers as he shoves them off and stands before her. 

“Must you torment me, Natalia?” he asks her, getting on the bed once more, this time unimpeded. He lays beside Clint, his leg hooked over his, grounding him, and Bucky’s hands clench on the empty air. Natasha just laughs as she straddles him, her knee in the dip between their hips. 

“You love torment,” she says, dragging her nails so hard down Bucky’s chest that little red lines chase after them, as he arches up against the pain. “And most of all, little soldier,” she leans in further, nose to nose with him as she presses his shoulders down into the bed. “You love to do as I say.” Clint can’t help his own noise at the sight of them like that, suddenly acutely aware of how fucking hard he is and how much that is not being taken care of. “Shhh,” Natasha shushes him, reaching to grasp his hand in hers. Bucky starts to grab for her hips, but stops himself, and lets her grab the condom from the bedside table right next to them. He lets her roll it on and he lets her sink down on him and he bites his lip bloody with how hard it is to stay still. 

“Oh,” Clint says, pressing his cheek to Bucky’s shoulder and bucking his hips into nothing when Natasha drags his thumb to her clit. “Fuck.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes back. “Yeah, fuck is right.” He struggles with himself, watching Clint brush circles around Natasha’s clit, watching her fuck herself on him like he’s nothing more than a plaything for her, because she knows that he’ll stay still now that she’s asked him to. She knows he won’t touch her. He moves his hips up, helps her rhythm, takes a deep breath because he knows that if he comes, she probably won’t touch him again for the rest of the day. 

And it’s not that Natasha thought Bucky couldn’t follow her orders. It’s just that she didn’t have amazingly high hopes or anything, and the rush of getting those hopes overfilled is making her a little dizzy. He’s flushed and gripping at the duvet, struggling against her, straining beneath her. It's a rush, to have that kind of power contained between her thighs. She’s in charge, and he's clearly getting off on that fact. His lip is red with a little blood, where he's bitten it to hold himself back, and she can't help reaching forward to rub her finger along his mouth. 

“Are you holding something back from me?” She asks, so soft and dangerous even though she’s out of breath with how he feels, the drag of him, the slam of his hips against hers. Her second orgasm is creeping up, built off the back of the first, and it's almost too good, just on the edge of more than she can take right now. 

“Only what you asked of me,” Bucky gasps, shaking his head a little and opening his mouth. An invitation for her. His lips look so pretty stretched around her fingers. They're going to look pretty stretched around Clint’s cock, too. Oh, fuck, she's so close. 

“Touch me,” she says, rolling her hips just enough for him to hit her at a dizzingly good angle. Clint whines again, biting at the smooth skin of Bucky’s shoulder and curling into them so he can reach her better. Bucky’s hands come up to hold her hips bruisingly tightly almost immediately. “Good boy,” she purrs, the cat eating the canary whole, and that's what does it. That's what breaks him in half. 

“Please,” Bucky groans, pressing his feet to the bed and begging her, begging her beautifully. “Please let me come.” 

“Yes,” Natasha says, choking on the knot forming in her stomach. “Come on, come for me.” And Bucky does, he writhes beneath her, flush spreading down his chest and gasping for air. Oh, how good he will look riding her strapon. He’s beautiful like this. Clint moans again, breathing fitfully and squirming into Bucky as he comes down, and Natasha grips Clint’s wrist in encouragement as he brings her over the edge to follow Bucky. The second one is deep and warm and it rips the knot apart in her belly, it aches and clearly the feeling of her clenching and spasming around him is all but too much for Bucky as he whine softly and blinks his eyes through the daze. With legs trembling just slightly, she cups Bucky’s jaw in one hand and Clint’s in the other and she kneels up, breathing in deep as he slips out of her. 

“Do you want to come?” She asks Clint, soft and sweet with his face pink and his eyes lost in the distance. He nods slowly, his body twisting further into them, a knot forming of the necessity to feel grounded. He's blissed out and shy as he turns his face into the covers when Bucky pushes him over so that he can lie half on Bucky’s chest and the metal arm can hold him still. An anchor. As soon as he falls beneath Bucky’s arm, caught there, exposed to her, his squirming stops and he takes a deep breath. “What do you want?”

He licks his swollen lips and rolls his head back into Bucky, baring his throat to her. It's hard not to just bite it. “I don't know,” Clint finally replies, plaintive and soft and a little bit lost. Bucky kisses his jaw, brings his hand up to slowly kiss the pulse of his wrist. 

“Do you want Natasha to decide, baby?” He says, biting softly at the join of his palm and thumb. Clint shudders minutely in pleasure and reaches out to her with his other hand. 

“Yes,” Clint says, as he touches Natasha’s ribcage gently, seeking purchase at the dip of her waist. He’s so pliant, looking for someone to hold him down and make him good for them, to mold him and own him. And she can tell that Bucky does, but he’s different than she is. She owns them both, and her implicit sway over Bucky as well gives Clint the knowledge that even Bucky, his strong and capable boyfriend, is under her control. 

So she chooses for him, and when he comes shuddering underneath them like a leaf in a storm, trembling and moaning and hiding his face, his blush, his calm and obedient eyes, she sees the pleasure that comes with knowing he had been good for them both. 

In the aftermath they hold him, Bucky sprawled on one side of him cat napping and Natasha sitting on the other, her thigh over his waist and her hand in his hair. He’s settled and calm, sleepy and still the slow honey of satisfaction runs through his veins. 

“We could do this again,” Natasha offers them, after half an hour of contented silence. Clint smiles dopily up at her, and Bucky nods his head sleepily. 

“We  _ will _ do this again,” he says. 

And that’s how Clint’s accidental relationship becomes an accidental sometimes threeway with his best friend. 

She doesn't show up all the time. But she appears when she wants to, and she appears when they want her to without them having to really ask her. It is comfortable, so much so that for a while he panics about it.

“I'm going to fuck it up,” he tells Steve, when the man drops by to barbecue on the roof with him and Bucky and the tenants. 

“I'm probably going to ruin this,” he tells Sam, when they're playing with Lucky in the park. Now that he and Bucky are dating, Kate doesn't think it's too much of a risk to leave Lucky here for good. 

“It's only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down,” he tells Simone, handing her a bowl of fruit salad during the month’s tenant’s meeting. 

“You're an idiot,” all three of them say. “Let yourself have a good thing, for once, Clint.” 

So he tries his best. And maybe that means that he tries to do laundry for Bucky since he knows it's important to him. Maybe it means he breaks the laundry room fan and gets banned from it by his own renters. Maybe it means he buys Natasha’s very favorite imported tea, and keeps it in the top cupboard where only she would think to look. Maybe he forgets to tell her this and she has to find it herself a month later. But he's trying, he really is, despite the dumpster fire that he remains. It pays off in little ways and big, as the months pass, until suddenly it's been a year and a half and he doesn't feel like he's going to die all the time and he doesn't have nearly as many bruises and he is, shockingly, happy. 

Bucky shakes him awake one morning, dragging him out of his peaceful slumber underneath the weighted electric blanket that the other man had bought for him a while back. “Hey,” he says, a grin on his face that can only mean trouble. “I cashed in a favor. Let’s go visit Katie.” Clint manages to blink awake, shove his extra hearing aid materials into his grungy suitcase (he found it for only three dollars at a Goodwill in Spokane six years ago), all of his clean clothes, and a first aid kit for good measure. He drags it downstairs from the loft to find Sam and Steve sitting in his kitchen, drinking the pinkest frappuccinos Clint has ever seen. Behind them are a few boxes with Avengers logo on it, and on the counter are the keys to a very nice Tesla minivan. 

“Are you coming with?” Clint asks groggily, fumbling to pull an old box of pop tarts out of the cabinets so he actually eats before he completely burns his stomach with coffee (a habit he picked up somewhere along the line from Bucky, because Clint guesses he can go along with  _ some _ of Bucky’s “self care” bullshit.) Sam shakes his head and leans down to scratch behind Lucky’s ear. 

“Nope, we’re gonna take care of the building while you’re gone,” he says. 

“I promised Bucky I wouldn't burn it down,” Steve says, like his word means absolutely anything when it comes to safety. 

“And I promised Bucky to put out any fires that Steve inevitably starts.” Sam knocks his knee into Steve and the two of them grin winningly at him. Aw, hell. He does miss Kate. Clint grabs the keys from the cupboard above the fridge and sets them down on the counter. 

“Protect them, will you?” He says, because his tenants- they're his family, whether they know it or not. 

“Of course,” Steve says, like he understands everything Clint isn't saying in that sentence. 

“Let’s go, Barton,” Bucky calls from the doorway. “Before traffic kicks our ass.”

A year ago, he wouldn't have considered leaving the building for a road trip, let alone one with his boyfriend. He wouldn't have trusted anyone to take him anywhere, bar Natasha. The insecurity of that time spent alone, the stress of a trip- it seems like a one way ticket to a broken heart and a messy break up. But Bucky is a snarky asshole too, and he's almost as disaster prone. He understand the way Clint needs his space at night sometimes when the shadows are too dark, and how other nights he needs to be held down so those particular shadows can't take him with them. He knows what it's like to fear your loss of autonomy- to suffer brainwashing at the hands of the enemy and have to live with the blood on your hands once you wake up. So he takes the advice of everyone in his life, and he picks up his suitcase and gives his dog a kiss goodbye. 

“Let's go see Kate,” Clint says, and for the first time in his life, he feels good about leaving. 

  
  
  



End file.
